Marigolds are flowers where I come from @HappyDeb!!
6 Likes
Emptying bins before leaving for a holiday would not be high on my list. Remembering my passport. Making sure I have my tickets and boarding pass. Checking any medication. These are all high priorities when I pack. I can just imagine a family leaving for a break. Over excited children. Grumpy husband. Mother trying to keep the peace and appease everyone. Making sure the toilet bin is empty……..not even in the top half of the list todo.
I think there is worse things sitters have to face than bins with something in them.
7 Likes
I look specifically for previous reviews where the sitters have commented on how clean the house was. That’s because sitters are unlikely to lie and write about that.
That’s on top of checking out photos for clutter (though hosts can misrepresent such) and checking welcome guides well ahead of sits. Like someone who spells out cleaning details and notes where cleaning supplies are is more likely to be clean.
You also can ask about their cleaning routine on the video call, if you like. And ask for a video tour.
Funny detail: One of my previous host’s photos showed their pet in a suitcase (presumably while the host was packing). It included a canister of disinfecting wipes. That’s a sign of someone clean. I do likewise as someone who lives clean, including on all travel, not just while sitting.
My most recent host mentioned cleanliness in their listing and welcome guide, including using different towels to clean.
A host who mentions that their home is shoe free indoors is also a good sign.
4 Likes
My motto: live and let live.
We are human and not perfect.
If the house is clean but the HouseOwner forgets/ didn’t clean one or two minor things, like emptying a bin, I would do it for them.
It just takes 5 minutes.
And it gives me also a peace of mind instead of annoyed by it every day.
I hope the HO will have the same mindset if I, as sitter, would forget a minor thing.
9 Likes
Oh to live a life where full bins were the worst part of my day. 
15 Likes
just bins? it doesn’t sound all that bad if it’s just garbage in bins. it takes all of 5-10 mins to empty bins and put in fresh bags.
i have sat in a dirty house before on my boyfriend’s couple account. we were mortified at the state of the house when we arrived. we spent the first night cleaning, and it actually ended up being kind of funny and now we crack jokes about it with eachother. i told him to mention it in the review but he didn’t and later regretted not mentioning it. so if you feel that the house was unclean and inconvenienced you, you should mention that in your review. but if it’s just simply full bins, i wouldn’t consider that all too troublesome and might consider you to be pickier than the average person with standards of cleanliness.
7 Likes
The very first sitting was in a house which wasn’t very cleaned. The kitchen in particular was quite filthy and made me not really wanting to eat in there.
However it was the first sitting, it was just for a week, the lady left €100 for food (which I never spent, but I appreciated the gesture), the cat was lovely. I tried to look at positive sides!
Fortunately, all the other sittings were in quite cleaner or spotless houses. Some maybe not perfect, but definitely better than the first one!
I perfectly know your point of view. I am very careful when I choose the sitting, sometimes photographs don’t reflect the reality, I read every single line of the reviews and also read through the lines 
If I had another experience similar to yours, I would write it on the reviews. So far all 5 stars.
I truly wish my life was sometimes as simple and easy as worrying about a couple of full bins on a sit. What’s that old saying? Don’t sweat the small stuff 
5 Likes
@HappyDeb what are marigolds please , as Temba says, in Australia they are just flowers. I am curious about this item, thanks 
2 Likes
These little beauties @ziggy #topfashionitem
3 Likes
@Cuttlefish oh! So they are just rubber gloves as we would call them 
Love hearing what certain things are called in different countries. Thanks mate! 
3 Likes
Why are rubber gloves named after flowers?
2 Likes
Apparently because the originals were the same colour as the flower @Crookie and a bit like the hoover vs vacuum thing, it just stuck as a generic name. #usbritsareodd
5 Likes
The worst experience for me was a sit with 3 very lovely dogs and dog hair everywhere. Luckily our bedroom and bathroom were off limits, however the rest of the house, particularly the living room were awful.
The HOs had covers on the furniture and the covers were thick with dog hair. So much so that I wouldn’t sit down. The floor was covered in hair too. I wanted to wash the sofa covers but there was no clothes dryer which meant the dogs would be directly on the furniture for too long while waiting for the covers to dry.
The vacuum cleaner canister was full of dog hair and it gave me “ick”. I didn’t want to touch it to empty it. The sit was only 5 days, the dogs were great, the location was beautiful. I just sat on the kitchen bar stools instead of the sofa.
That was the filth I would not touch. A bin would not bother me, I’d just dump it in the wheelie bin.
I like a clean house but life happens and it’s often messy. I understand that. We all do have limits though and things that just make us gag.
1 Like
And woman who don’t wrap their tampons and leave them in a bin for a sitter to see is not being private enough for me.
It’s more about exposure to bodily fluids and potential diseases than about seeing menstrual blood that would be the problem for me. Half the population bleeds on a monthly basis for many years, so it’s just a thing like seeing blood from a cut on the hand. It’s life, it happens. I know some have a strong aversion to the sight of blood. That’s enough of a reason why I think used menstrual products should be wrapped even though it would not really bother me.
I come from a practice where bins are emptied nightly. When homeowners let trash pile, I don’t feel comfortable